


Pack Up Your Troubles

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dancing, F/M, Gift Fic, Historical Reenactment, Humor, Museums, Music, Romance, Workplace, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 12:59:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10663122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: How many times had Byron nearly bored them all to tears in meetings that dragged on and on, meetings only salvaged by the look in Jed's eyes?(Infinity + one was usually the answer. Today, that seemed irrelevant.)





	Pack Up Your Troubles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MercuryGray](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryGray/gifts).



“What if we blow off the opening, Mary?” Jed asked, loosening his collar. He had to know how she felt about that, it must be affecting how slowly he let his hand work at the cloth, letting her imagine that hand, somewhere….else. He must have heard how she caught her breath when he snuck a hand to the knotted tie and wriggled it free, letting his hand graze the silk before it slipped back to his lap instead of the legal pad on the Formica table-top. They’d been working on the museum’s World War I night for the past three months, weekends and evenings and interminable board meetings where Mary’s gaze drifted to the windows that overlooked the lake and he smiled at her secretively, slyly, an expression he never used when he showed up, inconsistently, at the latest period re-enactment, always calling her “Phinney” the first time he saw her, before he was carefully, precisely in character as an era-appropriate military physician, “what my mother always wanted for me, before I went into history and all the hurdles to becoming a curator, all those terrible piss-poor Chardonnay soaked events, God, Mary, how do you stand them?” asking with those dark eyes looking at her intently, his dimples mostly hidden by his nearly trimmed beard, that she found herself wanting to touch, even though it wouldn’t be appropriate in any era. Now he was waiting for her, patient as he rarely was, so appealing she wondered that she hadn’t already taken that half-step closer.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Jed,” she answered carefully. Blow off the opening and then what? He’d said “we,” which meant he imagined the two of them together, doing something, he wouldn’t have bothered to use the word if he meant they would each sit at home catching up on their respective Netflix queues, Mary slurping leftover pho from a carton in a role-reversal, Jed tucking into a single chicken breast garnished with glossy mushrooms, broccoli a Vitamin A-rich forest to the right. He’d said “we” and that meant he had something in mind that he hadn’t said yet, that she very much wanted to know but knew she shouldn’t ask.

“No, it’s not,” he agreed, startling her with how readily he accepted her demurral. She was also startled by how disappointed she was that he had given way to her dutiful push-back. He was watching her expression, she could tell; he grinned merrily, wickedly before he spoke again,

“It’s an excellent idea. Right up there with germ theory and checks-and-balances, it’s a Leonardo’s notebook caliber idea and don’t you try to tell me anything different.” She couldn’t help laughing then and his smile changed, became warmer, lighting his eyes.

“How can we? Summers is expecting us there and Bridget too. Actually, Bridget is the bigger issue. If she gets wind of this, I’ll be stuck trying to fix Byron’s latest grant proposal and you wouldn’t know it, but that makes sticking forks in your eyes seems like a trip to Aruba,” Mary said.

“Aruba, huh? I would have pegged you as an Antigua kind of girl,” Jed interrupted.

“I’m neither. Nor am I a girl, we’ve been over that and I know HR covered it too,” Mary snapped but without the edge that had colored all their initial exchanges.

“I stand corrected and I apologize. Truly,” he replied, his tone making it clear he was sincere, his fingers drumming on the legal pad a tell. She made an encouraging gesture and he began talking again.

“It’s not a big deal, Mary. Henry can do it, I checked with him, and he’s actually…excited? I didn’t have the heart to tell him it wasn’t going to be, well, whatever he is looking forward to so much,” Jed explained.

“I don’t know,” Mary said slowly. She’d been expecting to spend the night directing middle-aged women to various exhibits, subbing in for Emma when she needed a break at the display about WWI era nurses, eluding Byron Hale, the best example of nepotism Mary had personally met, in his perpetual but sadly-predictable pursuit, and silently congratulating herself for re-negotiating the cases of wine with the man who’d replaced the vile Silas at Carlyle Liquor, so they were not stuck with vinegar or the weakest Chablis that a vineyard ever produced. She’d planned to have an extra tall latte the next morning as a reward, with quantities of whipped cream than might make even Leslie Knope raise an eyebrow in respect-slash-astonishment, and spend the weekend recovering with Sidney Chambers flickering Anglican-ly, handsomely across her TV screen.

“Where’s the woman who announced her first day she knew right from wrong and we were not, I repeat not, going to have an entire wing devoted to the 17th century without adequate representation for Native Americans? Who told Anne Hastings to get rid of the collection of, and I quote, ‘endless tatty, moth-ridden bonnets of unknown Northern European provenance’ in favor of the authenticated and dated Ojibwa canoes she’d convinced an elder to loan us? Because I think she’d know,” Jed said, looking at her intently. She didn’t blush much anymore, thank God, but she felt the color rise in her cheeks as he spoke, at the memories he’d evoked and also the understanding that he had been noticing her since she’d first arrived, noticing and taking her seriously, even if he had teased and mocked her those first few weeks, months after she’d taken the job.

“What would we do instead?” she asked.

“Oh. Um, I didn’t think,” he said, as awkward as she’d ever heard him and she decided to help him out a little. A sort of help, like when she gave him the instrument he requested at the re-enactment, knowing it was the wrong one for the procedure, anachronistic or just plain ineffective, enjoying the consternation that accompanied his barely tamped fury when he hissed, “Nurse Phinney! The Bard-Parker scalpel!”

“You didn’t think I’d say yes? Or you didn’t think of what I’d rather do besides spend my night at the opening?”

“Yes,” he replied, taking her aback with how quickly he capitulated, how his capitulation made her into a persnickety schoolmarm, a woman she didn’t want to be.

“Coffee, we could go out for coffee, there’s that new place on Third,” he tried, scrambling when she didn’t immediately acquiesce.

“I think ‘Topper’ is playing at the Odeum, if you like that, I thought you’d like that sort of thing,” he went on. He’d rarely looked so worried, not even the few weeks when they thought the cuts would be passed in the State House and there was a sense of dread hanging over everyone.

“Tapas? Toro, everyone loves that place and they don’t take reservations so not having them won’t be an issue,” he suggested, nearly desperate. She had the sudden impulse to reach across the table and take his hand in hers, to hold his wrist lightly first and then more tightly. She wanted to stroke her thumb across his palm and look to see whether he bit his lip or held his breath. 

“This is harder than you thought, huh?” she said.

“You must have noticed, Mary, these past few months, you’ve had…an effect on me,” he replied. 

She hadn’t let herself admit it, not often anyway, but she had noticed how he teased more gently, found more clever ways to praise her, but also, listened to her; his own work had become more culturally sensitive, more creative. He had spent less time mocking Summers’s nephew Byron and more recruiting Sam Diggs to stay after his internship. He’d stopped being a man she was attracted to and annoyed by in nearly equal measure and had become Jed, her lunch companion and interdepartmental ally, the person she most looked forward to seeing when she walked in and whom she always tried to say goodbye to before she left, willing to risk that quizzical look above his glasses when he’d spent three hours leafing through primary source material and planned to spend another two before he left late. He wasn’t just a friend but he hadn’t become anything more, not yet, even though Char groaned whenever Mary told her about the latest near-miss, declaring “Mary honey, life is not a period drama. Y’all are wasting a hell of a lot of time with all this repressed dancing around and neither one of you is even British.” Not until today, which was edging towards tonight. 

He’d had an effect on her too, a whole kit and caboodle of effects, and the collective impact was what made her think about what he’d offered and how. Tapas reminded her of Gustavo, the chem grad student she’d met when she was a shy freshman turning up at the first ballroom dance club meeting; they’d ended up living together, unofficially, by the time she was a junior and had only broken up when he’d gotten a tenure track position in Miami, too close to his home, too perfect to pass up but only for him, not close to perfect for her. They’d parted well enough that she could remember all the nights they went out dancing with bittersweet nostalgia and she’d kept her favorite pair of heels…

“If we’re blowing off the opening, I want to go salsa dancing,” she announced. She might well have said she knew what happened at Roanoke, where Al Capone was, and that she knew the ending to _Edwin Drood_ given the expression on Jed’s face.

“Are you, are we up to that?” he asked.

“I suppose we’ll have to find out. You seem to have a decent sense of rhythm, you clap on the right beat and you did okay on the ropes course,” she replied, knowing what would come next.

“Okay? I **killed** on the ropes course!”

“Fine. If we’re not actually staying here for the event, can we leave? It’ll take me a little while to get ready.” He nodded and she wondered what he thought was going to happen. What he hoped. Evidently they had both been rather far off the mark, based on his reaction when she opened the front door an hour and a half later.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” he exclaimed.

She would have been offended if he hadn’t also started to reach for her, his hand grazing her bare arm and lingering, as he took in the tight dress somewhere between magenta and fuchsia, the 21st century equivalent of Perkin’s popular aniline dahlia shade of the 1860s, the ruffles at the mid-thigh hem, the undeniably impressive results of the thirty minutes she’d spent with her curling iron and some Aveda hair spray, the heels she’d had resoled twice instead of replacing, and quite a bit of bare skin, liberally dabbed with the Samsara she saved for special occasions.

“Language, Jed,” she scolded without thinking, not shifting away from his hand on her, liking the shadow at the open neck of his grey shirt, the line of him in the dark jeans even more appealing than when he wore his Army uniform as Dr. Foster in a field that was supposed to resembles Ypres or the banks of the Meuse.

“Sorry. I just didn’t know, I didn’t expect,” he said. It wasn’t insulting because his eyes were so soft, his hand warm, his lips curved in a smile that said it was the best surprise yet. He wouldn’t stand as far when he brought her home, she knew that, and she was glad of the perfume behind her ears, between her breasts, in the notch at the base of her throat.

“You thought there would be a cardigan,” she teased and he laughed. “I get it, you didn’t think there was a Mary Phinney who wasn’t an earnest historian or Scrabble aficionado.”

“I didn’t think…but I hoped. And if I’m being honest, I dreamed,” he said.

“Keep being honest then,” she replied. “A dream isn’t a wish, it can still come true if you talk about it,” she added and he laughed again, a lower, richer sound that matched the feeling that came with the music, how she wanted to move when she heard it.

“Boy, do I owe Henry one,” Jed said.

“Yeah, but that’s always true. Let’s see how you do on the dance floor, then I can decide if I owe Henry one too,” Mary answered, pulling the door shut behind her, letting her hips swing a little as she walked down the steps, letting Jed’s fingers twine with hers. She hummed under her breath, “Smile, smile, smile…”

**Author's Note:**

> This was a gift fic for mercury gray for her donation to the Sierra Club fundraiser. Sadly, this one doesn't feature much nature, but I has a lot of other bits and bobs jammed in to suit the recipient and, I hope, other readers. There is the faintest hint of Emmry (why else would Henry be so eager to stay for the opening).
> 
> The title is from one of the most popular WWI songs, "Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag" which also features the lyric "Smile, smile, smile..." "Topper" is one of the classic screwball comedies of the 1930s. I worked in aniline dyes (again) for a taste of the 1860s.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Send the word over there](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10672284) by [middlemarch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch)




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